TORQUE TALK
Aston Martin Lagonda's Gaydon-based general manager of service operations, Chris Baker, 50, has spent 34 years in the car industry. He first came to Hong Kong in 1979, when he was Jaguar's resident technical engineer based in Tokyo, and used to call on the region's dealers about five times a year. Baker transferred to Aston Martin from JaguarSport in 1994 and recently returned here to help Aston Martin Hong Kong's customers learn more about their cars. He talks to William Wadsworth about the challenges of driving an Aston Martin Vanquish on local roads.
'Typically with the Vanquish, it's the Formula 1 paddle shift which is the focus of attention. It's basically all about getting them to understand that, behind all of the high technology, there's a manual gearbox and a clutch that still has to go in and out to effect a shift. There's no clutch pedal, though. Nevertheless, you need to get drivers to understand that it's strictly not an automatic transmission either. It's a manual transmission that's electronically and hydraulically operated at blink-eye speed, and once you get over that mindset, they can be more mechanically sympathetic with the car, enabling them to enjoy it fully with a smooth, exciting drive.
'It's a bit like being a dance instructor, because you have an enormously powerful car - 460 brake horsepower - and driving it in Hong Kong, with its fairly challenging roads, does demand a certain amount of skill. You need to be in the right gear, at the right place, for the given road terrain. It's just harmonising that, I guess. The best way to impart this approach is on a face-to-face basis with the customer in the car. I let them drive and observe all the things that, perhaps, they are doing wrong.
'A classic case is that you should only drive the car with one foot. Basically, you park your left foot and keep it well out of the way. That means you can only do one thing at a time, either accelerate or brake. Anything else could compromise the clutch operation and the car's drivability and smoothness.
'A customer I spoke to recently really enjoyed the benefit of the one-to-one tutorial, so I encouraged him to come and try our High Performance Course track day. He's an international businessman, so when he's next in England, we can give him the full driving experience all day, with a professional instructor at a safe proving ground, in a relaxed but exciting environment. The specialist facility we use is named Millbrook. It's the best proving ground of its type in Britain, and is only a 20-minute drive from Newport Pagnell, where we build the Vanquish.
'The DB5 is probably one of the most beautiful Aston Martins, although the one that really does it for me is the DB4 GT Zagato, and that's probably the most inspirational Aston of all time, featuring many of the classic styling cues you'll see on Aston Martins today. It's that Italian styling flair, and they're all classic to the marque: the front grille, the side strakes, the rear glass. You don't need to look at the badge to identify the car as an Aston.
'The biggest thrill? Driving the Vanquish at full chat is quite something. We do have great roads in Britain, where you can explore the car's potency, but to enjoy the car fully with no speed limits, Millbrook is the place. When you put the car in Auto Shift Manual, and you press the Sport button on, then press Traction Control off, Track off, you can just floor it and leave your throttle to the metal. Basically, the rev counter goes straight round to 7,200rpm between each hyper gear shift, one through six and you're soon doing 190mph [304km/h], if you've got enough road. But even at Millbrook on the high-speed bowl banking, at 165mph that's as fast as you dare go, with another 25mph in reserve. The sound is magnificent. The exhaust system has twin bypass valves, and they're linked to the car's engine management system to open progressively at around 3,000rpm; so the exhaust is basically straight through at that point. It sounds awesome.
'For me, though, V8s are the best-sounding engines, but a V12 on song in a Vanquish is an absolutely delicious sound - pure music. I still love the V8s though. Our new baby due out in 2005, the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, has a V8 engine and a bypass exhaust system. This is a true sports car, it will have an F1 paddle-shift gearbox. That's a brand new market sector for us, as it's a less expensive car at around GBP80,000 [HK$1.14 million], and it's going to go head-to-head with the Porsche 911 as a true, two-seater street fighter, and a very aggressive motor car.'
